Author of "Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat," on the science of taste, culinary history, and the future of food. My work has appeared in Smithsonian magazine, Wired, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, the Guardian and the Huffington Post. In a previous life I was a reporter for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, where I contributed to several Pulitzer Prize-winning efforts. I am the co-author of "Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms."

As seas rise, and the storms grow stronger and more volatile, American coastal communities face an existential challenge that most are only starting to recognize. There are many ways to address this. One of them is already in place: the National Flood Insurance Program.

For years, it was part of the problem. Flood insurance was relatively cheap, and taxpayers effectively underwrote construction, and reconstruction, in some of the nation’s most flood-prone areas. (Private insurers provide disaster coverage for wind damage, not flooding.) It was a classic case of moral hazard: people are more likely to take risks if they know someone else will pay when the bet goes bad.

But thanks to a 2012 law, flood insurance rates were finally supposed to start reflecting actual risks: if you wanted to build or remain in a flood zone, you were going to have to pay more. Over time, this could bring a dose of rationality to coastal development: if you were willing to bear the costs of building in a risky area, fine. If not, withdraw to somewhere safer.

Except, it’s not working out that way.

The insurance rate hikes have stunned property owners. In Louisiana (by far the biggest recipient of flood insurance payouts), some sawtheir rates skyrocket from hundreds of dollars annually to over $10,000. Congress could try to find a compromise that softens the blow, but that hasn’t happened. A bill that would postpone the changes for at least four years passed the Senate overwhelmingly; now the House is considering it.

Meanwhile, FEMA, which draws the flood maps that determine the official risks and costs of coverage, has been cutting breaks to pricey properties. NBC investigative reporter Bill Dedmandid an analysis of these floodmaps and found that, basically, if you’re a wealthy property owner and formally request to be moved out of a high-priced flood zone, FEMA will accommodate you, even if this means moving your less-plugged-in neighbors into it in your place:

As homeowners around the nation protest skyrocketing premiums for federal flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has quietly moved the lines on its flood maps to benefit hundreds of oceanfront condo buildings and million-dollar homes, according to an analysis of federal records by NBC News.

The changes shift the financial burden for the next destructive hurricane, tsunami or tropical storm onto the neighbors of these wealthy beach-dwellers — and ultimately onto all American taxpayers.

In more than 500 instances from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.

NBC News also found that FEMA has redrawn maps even for properties that have repeatedly filed claims for flood losses from previous storms. At least some of the properties are on the secret “repetitive loss list” that FEMA sends to communities to alert them to problem properties. FEMA says that it does not factor in previous losses into its decisions on applications to redraw the flood zones.

What’s shocking about this is that FEMA has no explanation for it. Officials won’t allow anyone within the agency to be interviewed about how the program works, or how or why this might have happened. (In keeping with the Obama administration’s determination to keep journalists from talking with anyone in the federal bureaucracy.) Is this bureaucratic business as usual? Corruption? We have no idea, and it appears FEMA doesn’t either. A spokesman promises to look into it, so maybe we’ll get an explanation later.

Most coastal communities have only begun to grapple with the risks of storms. Old assumptions about the risks of a dangerous floods are revised upward yearly. Structures and polices designed to guard against last year’s disaster won’t work. If we can’t employ the tools we already have to address this problem, how easy will it be to devise new and more ambitious ones?

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